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From: "Annie Heppingstone"

Hi all,

I keep having a great time realizing I
have no choice at all... I am just
the observer. The following is an
example of what I mean... this sort of
thing is going on at all times and
everyday for me... I am quite sure
that
the god (or whatever) has an
incredible sense of humour (amongst
other
things)

I was repaid $65 someone owed me. Being a student this is a substantial sum
of money. Since the new university year (starts in February in Australia) is
starting in 2 weeks, I decided I should keep the money towards the cost of
my books.

Anyway... life happens... I found myself later in the day parking outside a
WA Salvage store (variety-store type place) just to see what they might have
that I really really needed... (oh oh..)

As I wandered around I noticed a set of 4 CDs going for $20 of pan pipe
music (my favourite instrument). I was sorely tempted but debated seriously
with myself for a couple of minutes on the wisdom of buying such a
non-necessity, when... I suddenly started laughing and realized that I
really had no choice on whether I was going to buy the set or not... so I
decided to wait and see if it happened to be with me when I left the store.

As I wandered around I picked up a few other essentials... a cool water bowl
for my dog, a multi-coloured globe for goodness knows what, a file with a
Harley Davidson cover (cool!), a cute 1 foot long ceramic snail for my
garden, some sunflower seeds and more...

I reached the checkout and just as it was my turn to pay I saw myself walk
over and put the pan-pipe music in my trolley. The bill was just under $60.

As I walked to the car I felt so happy to have all these nice things
(yahoooo) and was pretty thankful that god's design allowed me to not be
sensible for a change (knowing I never had a choice anyway :-)

The music is beautiful and the money for my books will turn up or not when
it happens or not...

Being delighted at just watching the actions/thoughts etc of this body,
Annie Heppingstone, and others is very fascinating and often very funny to
me. (sometimes it hurts too, but thats beautiful in its own way).

Isn't life wonderful. I presume this sort of experience is similar to some
other person/s? I'd like to hear from anyone on this.

Love
Annie
~~~~
From: "Manchine"

Delightful Annie... keep an eye on the trolley, it's going to start filling
itself with some pretty interesting things!

______________________________________________________

Luan offers:

KKT: If you want a few words to
summarize how Dzogchen is practiced,
I can give these "key" words: PRESENCE
AWARENESS and SELF-LIBERATION.
Presence Awareness is easy to
understand but Self-Liberation is
another story :-) To really appreciate
the wonderful meaning of this word in
Dzogchen, many more words needed
for the explanation :-)

Dzogchen divides Buddhist teachings
in 3 different paths depending on how
people on each path practice:

(1) The Path of RENUNCIATION is
essentially dualist. One has to
renounce this world to attain the other
shore. This is the path of both Hinayana
& Mahayana. In practice, one uses
good deeds to overcome the bad ones,
for example, compassion over anger.
This path requires many lifetimes to
attain liberation.

(2) The Path of TRANSFORMATION
is Vajrayana (Diamond Vehicle) or
Tantrism. Instead of overcoming anger
by compassion, for example, the adept
tries to "transform" passions in wisdom.
One can attain liberation in one lifetime
but enormous works are required.

(3) The Path of SELF-LIBERATION is
Dzogchen or the Great Perfection. It
is called "great" because there is
nothing more sublime; it is called
"perfection" because no further means
are necessary. Our Primordial State is
for ever self-perfected and needs only
to be recognized, thus nothing is to be
*renounced* or to be *transformed*. The
Dzogchenpas (practitioner of Dzogchen)
continues to live "in the world" and tries
to maintain constantly the PRESENCE
AWARENESS of his PRIMORDIAL
STATE. Whatever manifests in the
field of experience of the practitioner
is allowed to arise just as it is, without
judgment of it as good or bad, beautiful
or ugly. In that very moment, because
there is no clinging, no attachment, no
effort, no volition, whatever it is that arises,
whether as a thought or as a seemingly
external event, automatically liberates
itself, by itself, and of itself. Let things
SELF-LIBERATE is the "key" of
Dzogchen practice.

Another interesting question: What are
the similitude and the difference between
Dzogchen and Zen? My personal opinion:

(1) Both the paths are non-gradual, direct
approach to enlightenment (but Dzogchen
classifies Zen in the Path of Renunciation)

(2) Zen preoccupies with the pre-awakening
while Dzogchen with the post-awakening.
Dzogchen requires the recognition of the
Primordial State right from the beginning.
Thus the role of a Dzogchen master is
extremely important because he introduces
the disciple to experience directly the
Primordial State. In the Ten Oxherding
Pictures of Zen, Dzogchen begins with the
... 10th picture! :-) The bar is too high, no? :-)


May all sentient beings recognize their Primordial State :-)


Namaste,

KKT

____________

>Anatta:
>[snip]
>I am certainly not denying "a state ... where internal & external are an
appearance". How do you arrive at that? For that matter, what difference
does it make? There are states in which it is believed that races are
inherently superior to other races. States like that are deranged states.
There are many such states.

Dan B: A useful observation, Anatta. Thank you. There are many states
in which beliefs determine what will be allowed as experience, and
how that experience will be understood, and thus experience then
appears to confirm the beliefs. Such states rightfully can be considered
"deranged" because they function as closed loops, never allowing
"new perception" to emerge, simply recycling the "known and expected"
beliefs. The ability that we have to confirm our expectations and
project these confirmed beliefs is well worth examining, in my opinion -
such tend to run on the fuel of emotion (particularly fear and self-
protection) as well as habitual repetition (tendency to stay with the
familiar, avoid disrupting the apple cart). Clearly, such well-defended
loops are noticeable in many quises: paranoia, depression, politics,
religion, but, *most* importantly, the tendencies and framings of
experience constellated of social convention/"personal" self-referencing
erroneously labelled "reality".

>Anatta:
>Yet I do challenge that "internal & external" *appear*. If you could walk
>between the U.S. and Canada you would not *see* a border, would you?

Dan: Indeed, internal and external are categories for placing
and relating aspects of experience. As such, they don't truly "appear",
but are the basis for cognitive mapping, memory storage, and
"mental" activity of all sorts. These primal categories allow social
conventions, speech, and memories of situations to be comprehensible.
Thus, the categories appear to be "held in place" through a combination
of culture and neural functioning. Full release of "internal/external"
involves "disorientation" regarding where and how to place
and relate one aspect of experience to another. In fact, experience,
with no internal/external boundary, can only be "taken" whole,
undivided, with no separate observer.

There is no rationale
for "taking" experience this way, as rationales are formulated
through concepts, and concepts always involve boundaries of
inside/outside. Dropping rationale, reasons, cost/benefit analysis -
this is the only way to release "inside/outside" formulations
and related conceptual divisions. Such release occurs for no purpose,
and benefits no one. One can't truthfully say it's to cure something, or
resolve something, as the undivided "experience whole" can't be viewed as
a "resolution" or "cure" (is the universe a resolution, is All that is
a cure?). I suppose we discuss it because silence speaks
through us, because we reflect that which is self-evidently present, or
perhaps simply because we can't think of anything better to do. :-)

Love, Dan
_________________


From: "Manchine"
I've been watching here for a couple of days, and it occurred to me to ask a
teensy weensy question?

What are your impressions of the death transition?

Petros: I don't know, but I'm dying to find out!

M.:Oofff... that complicated aye?

Petros: That simple.

I don't know if you get a lot of US news down there in Chile, but earlier
this week there was a plane crash not far from where I live, just a few
miles off the coast in the Pacific Ocean. Almost 90 people were killed. I
drove up to a beach very close to the crash site the day afterward and just
sat on the beach meditating for a while, trying to feel what sort of
impressions or vibrations could be received, while feeling an internal
struggle going on due to my own terror and panic at the same time.

The waves were coming in very high and powerfully, but the rest of the ocean
seemed calm and unperturbed, and the sky brilliant and clear. What there
was, for me, was just an overwhelming sense of peacefulness. There was no
special dilemma or any sort of astral theatrics going on. There was this
sense of the hugeness of the ocean and its utter inability to be perturbed
by anything human. Just this sense that the ocean, like God (the Universe)
that it symbolizes, absorbs and swallows up everything.

______________


Some discussion on how to discuss on NDS:

>From: Kristie Shelloner
>We have, at different times, offered little pieces of "reality" through our
>experiences of trauma, or suffering, and had them pretty routinely
>rebuffed...

Roger: actually I'm surprisingly comfortable here. if/when I step out of
balance
into attachment someone is sure to notice, and that's to my benefit, yes
that's an invitation to catch me when I've fallen from the razors edge. It
also is giving me the opportunity to be strong and reach deeper inside, that
is I'm not rolling over and playing dead necessarily when challenged!

K: I would hope that a list such as this would welcome tales of personal
>experience that invite us, or demand of us, that we become aware, of how we
>react to suffering...or the appearance of unloveableness....or the
>appearance of foolishness...of instability....instead we sweep it under the
>rug.....I think, because it makes us uncomfortable, suggesting to me, that
>"enlightenment" as it is characterized here, frequently has not occasioned
>much change, from the regular, ordinary world, in how we relate to others.

R: This group is a facinating and wonderful microcosm endowed with great
sensitivity & insight. Sort of an experiment begging to see if even in this
setting humans can rise to appreciate difference!
~~~~~~~~~
Tony and Petros continue the theme:

> T: On here I haven't seen what you are talking about,
> it just seemed repetitive stuff,without experiential
> anecdotes. From my observation if anyone tried an
> anecdote about their experience here or on other
> illusory planes etc. They would be shot down in a
> barrage of non dual verbiage. Which seems to me to be
> all fine and dandy but it isn't people's experience
> and denying one's experience is like dropping out of
> school and saying the lessons are no good.

P:Right. I noticed, though, that you didn't take too kindly to my pro-Sai Baba
experiences.

T:> What do you think my chances would be, if I talked
> about all kind of experiences, especially in the
> Bardos and higher planes? I know the answer before I
> ask it. I am talking about NDS here.

P: I've also had lots of subtle phenomena, but even while experiencing them
there was an underlying awareness of their relativity and subjectivity. Many
teachers have cautioned us against putting too much store in such
experiences, and have insisted that awakening is utterly different from any
kind of "experience."

As Byron Katie would say, it's all "a story." And all stories are
fictitious. So the question might be, What is the purpose of telling these
"stories?"

T:> 2) That we will all talk about only this and in as
> many intellectual combinations of vocabulary as
> possible. If anybody dares to move off this 'dogma',
> than the heretic will be jumped on, ridiculed and
> castigated.

P: Yeah, like I was when I told the story of Sai stealing my plane tickets.
(Not to harp on Sai.)

T:> It seems to me that programming these two things may
> be fine but isn't this a discussion group? One has to
> talk about one's experiences as much as possible? I
> didn't get this impression. Non duality seems to have
> taken on the role of a religion, or perhaps I just
> don't understand Western approaches, having spent most
> of the last 12 years drinking in the Adwaitins and
> Sankara, I don't even need to pick the books up, so
> what?

P: Exactly, so what. (Or as I like to say, "SFW?")

Nonduality gets boring, but stories can also get boring. At least Nonduality
takes up less space.

I guess some of us are getting burnt out on NDS. I certainly did a few
months ago and unsubscribed for the holidays, and it was great. (Yeah, I was
really jittery and moody for a few days at first, but got over it.)
___________________________
Melody offers:
Sitting in the waiting room today I began
reading Osho's book, "Only One Sky, on
the Tantic Way of Tilopa's Song of Mahamudra".

[Tilopa sings to his disciple, Naropa]:

"Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols,
but for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal,
must this be said:

The Void needs no reliance,
Mahamudra rests on nought,
Without making an effort,
but remaining loose and natural,
one can break the yoke-
thus gaining Liberation."

Osho comments:

"This is the deepest message of this whole
Song of Mahamudra: do not seek, just remain
as you are, don't go anywhere else. Nobody
ever reaches God, nobody can because you
don't know the address......No, nobody ever reaches God.
It is always the reverse: God
comes to you. Whenever you are ready. And
the readiness is nothing but a receptivity: when
you are completely receptive, there is no ego;
you become a hollow temple with nobody in it.
~~~~~~~
"Only that which happens to you is true.
Only that which flowers in you is true.
Only that which grows in you is true and alive.
Remember it always: avoid borrowed knowledge.
Borrowed knowledge becomes a trick of the
mind: it hides ignorance - it never destroys it."
_______________


From: "Jan Barendrecht" who somehow always gets the last word when I edit.:)


When noticing a missing piece, that means missing Peace:))

When asked, "what would be required to make you perfectly happy?" those who
start thinking can tell but don't know whereas those who stop thinking can
know but don't tell...

Attachment can't be "solved" by attachment to detachment nor can passion be
"solved" by a passion for dispassion:)

The ability to recite from the kama sutra won't change a parrot into a
better lover :)

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